The Less Lonely Planet

by Rhys Hughes

  “What if he’s ill?” cried Vanessa.

  Mark sighed and his knees twitched, as if he really intended to get up and go down. “I’ll take a look...”

  Vanessa decided to treat this as a genuine offer. “Good idea.”

  “Shall I bring you a cup of tea as well?”

  She smiled. “Yes please.”

  He scowled and stood and struggled to pull on his trousers. From Vanessa’s position, it looked as if he was trying to escape a quicksand.

  Pangur Bán was gone. There could be no more doubt about it. Mark brought the news up the stairs with the tea. Vanessa sampled both with a pout. Then she said:

  “Go out into the garden and call for him.”

  Mark blushed. “Why should I?”

  “It’s your moral duty.”

  He hunched his shoulders and stepped towards the window. He always felt embarrassed calling a cat’s name in public. The neighbours might hear. It didn’t seem a very manly thing to do: he couldn’t say why. He looked down onto the garden. There was movement in the bushes, a flash of dark caramel, like toasted sunlight.

  “A cat!” he squealed.

  Vanessa was by his side. “Where?”

  “Cover yourself!” he spluttered. “The neighbours...”

  “Pangur Bán?”

  “No.”

  “A different cat? In our garden?”

  He frowned. “I’d say so.”

  They went down together, she wrapped in a dressing gown with a frayed belt. This was destined to snap and expose her excellent bosom to the world. Mark knew that. He continued to frown, lacking the incentive to do anything else with his face. The catflap was still swinging and muddy pawprints outlined a complex dance on the stone tiles. He stood above them as if he was decoding a choreography diagram. At the furthest limit of the prints lay a mouse, very dead.

  “A present for us,” he said.

  “The alien cat must have brought it,” he added later, over coffee. “For us to eat. Our breakfast on this fine morning.”

  “But I’m a vegetarian,” sniffed Vanessa.

  “A concept beyond a cat’s understanding...”

  “I want Pangur Bán back.”

  “You do indeed,” he conceded ruefully.

  They chewed toast in silence. The mouse had been quietly disposed of. The absence of Pangur Bán was dramatic, like the simmering aftermath of an argument when all words have been exhausted but rage still twists the heart into a corkscrew. The morning was ruined. Already Mark felt the rest of the day weighing on him, interminable, awful. And there was no escape, nowhere to go. It was Sunday.

  “I might put up those shelves later,” he suggested.

  “No you won’t.”

  “Or fix your portable steam cleaner.”

  “Not that.”

  He threw down his knife into the jam pot. It did not stick deep and quiver upright as he had hoped. It was not the strike of a hero. It penetrated half an inch and overbalanced, staining the tablecloth a pale cherry.

  “What then?” he demanded, slamming his fist, but the cups did not rattle.

  She raised her eyebrows at his uselessness and said: “You will call Pangur Bán until he comes. And if he does not come, you must call him some more.”

  “Yes,” he mumbled with lowered head.

  Vanessa sat in her rocking chair and thought about her cat and his huffs. He was big on huffs and good at them. When he wanted milk and there was none to be had, or when his favourite windowsill was cluttered with ornaments, or when he burned his nose on a candle: at these times and others he would demonstrate his ability at the art of huffing. His back turned to the object of dismay, his tail lashing like an electric cable severed in a storm, he would emit a constant low note, not quite a growl, not quite a squeak, but a complex tone pitched somewhere between the two, like bagpipes sat on by a hungry man.

  His big huffs were noteworthy, but his biggest huff was incredible. He indulged it once a year. Whenever they went off on holiday, they would make arrangements for a friend to visit the house and feed him. Pangur Bán was very precise in his dietary requirements, which included the angle of his bowl in relation to his milk dish. A lapse in this respect was most irksome to him. However hard the friends tried, they made mistakes. Pangur Bán would use bristling scowls to teach them what was wrong, and slowly over the course of the week they would make enough little adjustments to satisfy his feline majesty. By this time, Mark and Vanessa would be back, and the biggest huff would be discharged in their direction. It was an annual event.

  Now Vanessa craned her head at weird noises which were emerging from the adjacent room. She rose and wandered in their direction. She stood on the threshold of the open door.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  Mark lowered the handkerchief from his mouth. “Recording my voice.”

  She realised he had been talking into a microphone. “Why?”

  “To call the cat. I’m going to make a tape loop of me calling his name over and over. And then I can play it outside and call him all day without tiring, and still have time to do other things.”

  “But why the handkerchief?”

  He licked his lips anxiously. “So the neighbours won’t think it’s me.”

  Pangur Bán did not come back, but the strange cat did. They caught sight of its tail disappearing through the catflap. And there was another mouse, but this time the cupboards were open and the plates were strewn about the floor around it. A very distasteful sight.

  “The little rascal!” muttered Mark.

  “Rummaging among our things!” growled Vanessa.

  “Where does it come from, I wonder?”

  Vanessa stooped to pick up the mouse by the tail. Mark was left to clear up the plates.

  “Pangur Bán! Pangur Bán!” called a voice from the garden.

  “It’s going to rain,” said Vanessa.

  “I’ll bring the tape recorder inside,” replied Mark.

  “That’s for the best.”

  Mark went out and Vanessa seemed to hear the giggles of neighbours. Probably a trick of the wind in the bushes. The weather was taking a turn for the worse. And Pangur Bán was exposed to the elements. So was her husband, but he didn’t count as much.

  “Poor thing!” she said when he returned.

  “Thank you,” responded Mark, but then he realised she was looking beyond him into the garden. He sighed. “I wish I was a cat!”

  She regarded him with surprise.

  “You’re full of good ideas today!” she exclaimed.

  The sun went down and stayed there, but they went the other way, up to bed. The early stars twinkled through the window over the roofs of houses. Two of them were yellow.

  “Like Pangur Bán’s eyes,” Vanessa remarked.

  “You don’t think he has become a constellation?”

  “Don’t be silly!” she chided.

  He accepted the rebuke mildly, for he was her husband. “You know something? He would never have allowed us to retire to bed at this hour, if he was still here. He always had his supper at midnight.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That maybe the absence of Pangur Bán has a few advantages.”

  “Such as?”

  He swallowed dryly. “We are free to play.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, we can read books or make love. We can do these things in peace!”

  She was silent for a whole minute.

  “Shall we try both of them? Now?” she asked.

  “In any particular order? Or at the same time?”

  “Silly!” she repeated, but now she meant it as a compliment.

  There was a third mouse waiting for them when they went down the next morning. And the cupboards were open again. But now some effort had been made to drag the plates to the table. They had been abandoned under that item of furniture. Mark and Vanessa tidied them up together, more at ease in each other’s company than they had been for years.r />
  “What does this mean?” they wondered.

  There was no sensible answer. But the clock was urging them to work, chopping the riddle to pieces with every jolt of its rapier thin second hand. As they rushed coffee and prepared to leave, Mark indicated the catflap with a nod of his head.

  “Shall I lock it?”

  “To stop the strange cat getting in? But what about Pangur Bán?”

  He shrugged. “Fair enough.”

  “Leave it open...”

  He frowned as they passed through the hallway and reached the front door. “Do you think it really is trying to look after us?”

  “The new cat?”

  “Leaving food, I mean. Nearly laying the table...”

  She smiled without irony. “If it wants to do the washing and ironing too, I don’t mind!”

  “Better make the most of it.”

  “You’re right. How long can this last for?”

  All week. The alien cat must have entered the house twice every day. The evidence was there when Mark and Vanessa woke in the mornings and when they returned from work in the late afternoons. They caught occasional glimpses of their visitor when they peered through the back windows into the garden. But Pangur Bán himself did not appear.

  The ritual with the plates became more uncanny. At last they were forced to the conclusion that the disruption of their kitchen was more serious than a game. There were no more mice. The benefactor was clearly intent on experimenting with a variety of offerings. A blackbird, a goldfish and a chicken leg undoubtedly raided from some dustbin: these were prepared just for them with feline elegance, dumped in the middle of plates and ungarnished.

  Cutlery soon joined the crockery. Forks, knives and a spoon, positioned around the plates. Then the salt and pepper. Empty glasses were added on Thursday. An extraordinary achievement for a cat to manipulate such objects with its paws! Vanessa began to perceive a curious symmetry in this behaviour.

  “I think I know where Pangur Bán is,” she said on the final morning of the working week.

  Mark gasped. “Where?”

  “On holiday.”

  “What?” he blurted.

  “Probably abroad. He’s copying us. Every year we go away and arrange for a friend to feed him. He has done the same.”

  “Don’t be absurd!”

  “Consider more carefully. It makes perfect sense. If Pangur Bán’s meals aren’t arranged properly, he refuses to eat. And that’s what we’ve been doing: refusing to eat! So the other cat has been adjusting its offerings to us and also the manner of presentation.”

  “What an idea! It’s ridiculous,” he shouted. Then he added more thoughtfully: “So yes, I guess it might be true...”

  At the end of the day she found him standing at their front door. She gripped his elbow. “What’s wrong?”

  “I was waiting for you.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to go in alone.”

  “But you finish work an hour before me!” she cried.

  “Yes, I’ve been loitering here. I have a feeling something grand is about to happen when we step inside.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that smell?”

  “I think it’s basil and walnut tagliatelle.”

  She pressed her ear to the door. “I can hear pots and pans being rattled. And now a cork popping.”

  They held each other very close.

  “Let’s open the door,” she said at last.

  There was a single candle on the table. The flame flickered in the gentle gust from the swinging catflap.

  The two glasses were filled with wine.

  Mark sat and tucked the napkin into his shirt. After a moment’s hesitation, Vanessa followed his example.

  They broke freshly baked bread.

  “This meal is truly wonderful!” he exclaimed.

  Vanessa paused and lowered her fork. “Why didn’t we think to check Pangur Bán’s basket?”

  “What for?”

  She rose and moved to the corner of the room, grasping the basket and holding it upside down. The blankets fell out, and underneath them a selection of glossy magazines and pamphlets.

  “What are these?” he cried.

  She examined them. “Holiday brochures.”

  “Where for?”

  “Catalonia!” she laughed. “Where else?”

  The following morning they were woken by the postman sliding the mail under the door. They raced down to seize it. Among the bills and promotional offers, they was a single postcard.

  “Barcelona!” panted Vanessa.

  “What does it say?” gulped Mark, trying to read over her shoulder.

  She inspected it. “I don’t know!”

  “Perhaps he can’t write English?”

  She nodded sagely. “He’s a cat.”

  “In that case, how did the postman decipher the address?”

  They exchanged profound glances. Then they opened the door and ran out onto the pavement. The postman was already at the end of the street. But this was the moment Mark had been waiting for, half in dread, half in hope. The belt of her dressing gown finally snapped. He covered her excellent bosom with his hands and helped her back inside. No point causing a public disturbance.

  “Shall we meet him at the airport?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Cats probably have other methods of leaving the country. Pea green boats and suchlike.”

  “I hope he has bought us a nice souvenir.”

  “Same here.”

  “What shall we do now?”

  They licked their lips and said together: “When the cat’s away...”

  Absolutely.

  The Desiccated Sage

  On Midsummer Day, I conquered my fear of ducks and ventured into the park. My therapist had taught me a method of substituting plain images for distressing ones. For every mallard, I saw a mallet; and for every grebe, a grope. Pleased with my progress, I tipped my hat to the noble science of psychiatry. “Now,” muttered I, “without rancour or spite, I must give my absent counsellor her dues.” Unless you have knowledge of upholstery, do not ask what this entails.

  June is a stuffy month – it is the cardigan of the year. Wrapped in many layers of clothing, like a convalescent onion, I skirted the lake. Each unbuttoned waistcoat was a different paisley: unripe near my core, sprouting at my rim, a spectrum’s leftovers between. With the season and I colluding in stuffing the day, only one lack was apparent: a suitable herb. Imagine then, as you must, my delight at tripping over an opaque jar labelled with the words: DRIED SAGE.

  I stooped and picked it up. It was made of stone. Nothing else out of the ordinary, I thought, as I tugged at the lid. Yet it was not easy to account for its presence in the park. I stroked my goatee and mused. Had a myopic chef mistaken the circular lake for a gargantuan pizza and sought to flavour its murky depths? Or was this jar a makeshift roller for a local cromlech? I cast my eyes like vests, but netted no traces of café or henge. Deciding to provoke the issue no further, I returned to my attempt to break the seal and investigate the contents.

  At last, after a pantomime of excessive grimaces and howls, the top sprang off. I immediately applied my eye to the opening, but was greeted by a finger which poked my orbit and forced me to retreat a step. Watery as my gaze was, I was still able to perceive the whole of what occurred. The finger was followed by a hand, the hand by an arm, the arm by a body and the body by a personality. Before me, hovering some inches above the ground, an oriental philosopher dipped and smiled. He wore a silk kimono and his thin moustaches were like the uncut wicks of ceremonial lanterns which have gone out in the rain.

  “Good day,” said he. “I have been trapped in that jar for centuries and am mightily relieved to be set free. I wish to direct some gratitude in your direction. What is your name?”

  I stammered: “Lyndon Williams, Esq.”

  With an oblique frown, the apparition bobbed closer. “You seem a reticent fellow. This manife
station alarms you?”

  My voice was a whisper. “With respect, I’m unaccustomed to greeting Chinese sages in the park, particularly wispy ones. Sandwiches, yes; but rarely savants. What are you doing here?”

  “I am Huang Ruihan, former resident of the city of Xi’an in the time of the Zhou Dynasty. I’m a scholar and wizard. A fatal combination, believe me. I upset the emperor by proving that one of his favourite mystical concepts – reincarnation – didn’t exist, and then I made it appear in the room. I used logic in the first instance and a wand in the second. Anyway, he summoned his other sages and ordered them to lock me inside this jar. Even though I was better than any of them, all together they were stronger than me.”

  “Was your change of circumstances painful?”

  “Not really. They killed me first, you see. It is my ghost or soul which they imprisoned. The emperor considered himself a wit. He told me I was going to be shut away for a spell. I laughed at the joke, because it was the polite thing to do. Then I was beaten to death with clubs. It was a bit like shelling a nut. My spirit was inside my head, all huddled and trembling. It must have drawn its feet up through my neck and shut the hatch of my throat behind it.”

  “Ah, the epiglottis. I suppose it does resemble a trapdoor. But you make it sound as if your ghost took refuge in an attic. Is there really enough room in a skull for a whole phantom?”

  “If curled up tight, yes.”

  I considered this carefully. “Like the intestines in the gut, which if unravelled might reach all the way around a pagoda?”

  He brightened. “You are a doctor? A fine job, if you can keep it. The pay is much better now, I hear. And the oaths easier.”

  “No, I’m an amateur. I purchased a number of medical textbooks when I thought my condition had a physical basis. Now I know it is purely psychological. And I’m on the mend.”